Notable awards Trotter Prize 2012 Children 2 Role Creationist | Spouse Kathy Name Hugh Ross | |
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Born Hugh Norman Ross
July 24, 1945 (age 78)
Montreal, Canada ( 1945-07-24 ) Alma mater University of British Columbia (BSc)
University of Toronto (MSc, PhD) Education University of British Columbia, University of Toronto Books A Matter of Days, The fingerprint of God, The Creator and the C, Why the universe is the way it is, Hidden Treasures in the Bo | ||
Hugh Norman Ross (born July 24, 1945) is a Canadian North American astrophysicist, Christian apologist, and old earth creationist.
Contents
Ross has a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Toronto and an undergraduate degree in physics from the University of British Columbia. He is known for establishing his own ministry called Reasons to Believe that promotes progressive and day-age forms of Old Earth Creationism. Ross accepts the scientific age of the earth and the scientific age of the universe, however he rejects unguided evolution and abiogenesis as explanations for the history and origin of life.
Early life
Hugh Ross was born in Montreal and raised in Vancouver, Canada. Ross earned a BSc in physics from the University of British Columbia and an MSc and PhD in astronomy from the University of Toronto; and he was a postdoctoral research fellow for five years at Caltech, studying quasars and galaxies.
Career
Before starting Reasons to Believe, Ross was on the ministerial staff at Sierra Madre Congregational Church. In addition to apologetics writing, Ross speaks regularly in academic venues and churches, as well as regular podcasts "I Didn't Know That" (formerly Creation Update), and "Science News Flash." He spoke at the 2008 Skeptics Society' "Origins Conference" at California Institute of Technology alongside Nancey Murphy, Victor Stenger, Kenneth R. Miller. Sean Carroll, Michael Shermer and Leonard Susskind. Ross has publicly debated both scientists, including Jerry Coyne, Eugenie Scott, Victor Stenger, Peter Ward, Lewis Wolpert, Michael Shermer, and Rob Tarzwell. Ross has also debated young-earth creationists, including Ken Ham, Kent Hovind, Duane Gish, Danny Faulkner, Andrew McIntosh, John Morris and Ray Comfort. In 2012 he won the Trotter Prize, delivering the Trotter Lecture at Texas A&M University on "Theistic Implications for Big Bang Cosmology."
Creationism
Ross believes in progressive creationism, which posits that while the earth is billions of years old, life did not appear by natural forces alone but that a supernatural agent formed different lifeforms in incremental (progressive) stages, and day-age creationism which is an effort to reconcile a literal Genesis account of Creation with modern scientific theories on the age of the Universe, the Earth, life, and humans. He rejects the Young Earth Creationist (YEC) position that the earth is younger than 10,000 years, or that the creation "days" of Genesis 1 represent literal 24-hour periods. Ross instead asserts that these days (translated from the Hebrew word yom) are historic, distinct, and sequential, but not 24 hours in length nor equal in length. Ross and the RTB team agree with the scientific community that the vast majority of YEC arguments are pseudoscience and that any version of intelligent design is inadequate if it doesn't provide a testable hypothesis which can make verifiable and falsifiable predictions, and if not, it should not be taught in the classroom as science.
Ross is a critic of young-earth creationists, in particular Russell Humphreys.
Criticism
Hugh Ross has been criticized by CSUF professor emeritus Mark Perakh for misunderstanding basic concepts of thermodynamics together with misinterpretations of Hebrew words.
Ross is criticized by YECs for, among other things, his acceptance of uniformitarian geology and astronomy over what they see as a plain reading of the English translation of Genesis. YECs claim that speciation explains how present biodiversity could have arisen from the small number of "kinds" after Noah's Flood. Ross holds that Noah's Flood was local (universal to all mankind, but not to the whole planet), and believes it killed all humans except for those on the ark, whereas YECs generally hold that Noah's Flood was global (all land mass, even those with no humans).
Ross has drawn criticism for his views on God existing in hyperdimensions of time and space and interpreting Christian doctrines in that light from, among others, J.P. Moreland, Thomas C. Oden, and William Lane Craig. J.W. Browning of the Rocky Mountain Creation Fellowship, who agrees by and large with the YEC stance and with William Lane Craig to the extent of his critique on Ross, also disputed additional statements Ross had made on primary Trinitarian doctrine.